A hilarious, romantic, sexy, fun filled romp through Oxford and the Cotswolds, following the tangled relationships of a group of people as they play the traditional English pub game of Aunt Sally during one summer season.
THE AUNT SALLY TEAM by Flick Merauld- A Soap Opera:
When Bill Green puts a notice in a post office window in Oxford, he hopes for a group of intellectually stimulating companions with whom to share long summer evenings playing Aunt Sally, a quaint, traditional English pub game. Instead he gets a zany assortment of characters, not one of whom lives up to his preconceptions.
Diana craves excitement after ending a comfortable but unchallenging relationship. But is she heading for trouble when she finds herself irresistibly drawn to Dante Blackthorn? He’s handsome, charismatic and a feckless alcoholic and compulsive gambler, though his devil-may-care attitude and hazy sense of boundaries mask a sensitive and complex personality. His dissatisfied ex wife Beccy still hankers after him and his self-centred but vulnerable daughter Lucy hates the idea of a new woman coming into her Dad’s life!
Best friends Lissa and Bethany are pagan teenagers who have their own coven but want to meet boys and have fun as well. Which is fine till Liss falls for someone and jeopardises the friendship.
Meanwhile Jason, a delinquent eighteen year old, has been forced to play Aunt Sally by his Dad and Uncle, who hope being part of the team will keep him out of trouble. When Lucy and Jason are attracted to each other, things get complicated, especially as Beth has set her sights on him as well.
Elderly widow Vera needs to put the past behind her. Will helping Jason fill a gap in her life and begin the process of healing?
And Rashi’s family owns the George and Dragon pub where the Aunt Sally Team is based. He thinks his future is mapped out until he falls in love and is pulled between the culture he grew up in and the expectations of his Indian family.
With these and other characters thrown into the mix, the ensuing interactions and relationships become more and more entangled as the players progress through the season. From May Morning celebrations in Oxford to riotous Aunt Sally matches at idyllic Cotswold village pubs - with fun, drama, sex, romance and chaos along the way - by the end of the summer their lives will have been changed forever.
Excerpt
Dante Blackthorn threw the empty vodka bottle in the bin. Stumbling a little, but not enough to be noticed, he screwed up his eyes and headed across the road towards Ladbrokes. There was a horse he fancied running in the 2.30 at Sandown. Dante was a great believer in picking horses by names that caught his attention for some reason or another; after all, it had worked enough times in the past. And Pride of Pendragon was bound to win by a country mile. The only problem was that he’d blown his last tenner on the vodka. Riffling through the contents of his jeans pocket he came up with lighter, cigarettes, his best pen and a receipt for Tesco’s petrol, but no cash. The other pocket promised to be equally unfruitful until he found, folded up and sandwiched into yesterday’s defunct betting slip under his keys - oh joy! - an unclaimed scratch card to the value of £10. Clutching it in his hand, he headed purposefully, if a trifle unsteadily, towards the post office.
That was when he noticed the card with the Aunt Sally information. Dante knew what Aunt Sally was. He often glanced at it in the Wednesday edition of the Oxford Mail, on his way to peruse the racing pages at the back. In fact he had a vague memory of watching a match one drunken June evening in a pub in an idyllic village somewhere between Woodstock and Chipping Norton. He even had an inkling that he’d joined in at some stage before closing time, but as the memory carried an elusive tinge of embarrassment he didn’t probe it further.
But it might be fun to go along. He didn’t play much sport nowadays, even when he was sober, not since the redundancy and Beccy and Lucy’s departure, and something that didn’t stress his damaged left knee would be good. Added to which, any sport that involved being within the environs of a pub had to be a bonus.
He peered blearily at the card, not noticing the serious looking brunette till she turned around to leave. She was cute in a classy sort of way. No, maybe not cute, she was too elegant for that, despite her frayed and faded jeans. Cute was more comfortable for Dante, it cut women down to a size he could manage, on a level between an engaging child and a puppy; that way he felt less intimidated by them and more in control. This woman, with her long slim legs and confident bearing, was a far cry from the fluffy diminutive blondes that were his usual type. As she turned, her eyes locked on his briefly, challengingly and something flared in him, penetrating the drunken haze. Then she had swept past him and was striding down the Iffley Road in the direction of the city centre.
Diana’s subconscious had perked up and become very much aware of Dante’s presence, but superficially she was ignorant of him because her mind was occupied with whether or not to attend the Aunt Sally meeting. It looked intriguing. And it certainly beat going to evening classes, which was the usual occupation suggested for people who found themselves alone again after a relationship ended. Not that she was lonely or looking for someone to replace Kieran; but even so the days did stretch out a bit now and she didn’t want to strain her excellent friendships by presuming too much on the company so generously offered, nor was the companionship of Floella her lurcher bitch quite enough in the long evenings. Of course, Aunt Sally might be boring as hell, but on the other hand it might take her mind off things a bit, especially with the recent lull in her work. There was certainly no harm in going along to see.
Professional Reviews
Fun with a deeper message
The Aunt Sally Team is a laugh out loud book based on a very original idea. However, though the story certainly has its melodramatic moments and a lot of focus on light hearted relationships, love interest and humour, some of the issues tackled here are deep and not at all frivolous. The characters are well drawn and believable and the descriptions of Oxford and the surrounding countryside make you feel as if you are there.
A most unusual and compelling read
This is a most unusual and compelling read. Through the highly original idea of using the traditional Oxfordshire game of Aunt Sally as a focal point for this novel the eclectic mix of characters are seamlessly brought to life through wit, romance and tragedy. Flick Merauld is a born storyteller.
Farctured Frazzled Folk Fables and Fairy Farces, Part II satirizes popular children's stories into adult-oriented renditions. FFFF &FF, Part II is also available in Amazon Kindle and Barnes and Noble e-book formats.
